About

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together nearly 2500 successful student participants and 2500 mentors from 98 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.

Time Line

The official timetable for Google Summer of Code is provided on the GSoC timeline page. It is summarised below - please check the official one if you are intending to apply though - I may have mis-typed it!

Date

Requirement

Notes

12th March

Deadline for Organisation Applications

Done

18th March

Accepted Mentoring Organisations Announced by Google

ACCEPTED!

18th to 29th March

Would be student participants choose which organisations they are interested in, and discuss project ideas with them.

"Community Bonding Period" - Students get to know their mentors and the OSM community

Done

24th May

Coding Begins

Done

12-16th July

Mentors Submit Mid-Term Evaluations of Students Performance

Done - All Passed!

17 July - 09 August

Second session of coding

Done

9th August

Suggested "Pencils Down" Date

Done

16th August

Firm "Pencils Down" Date

Done

16-20th August

Mentors Submit Final Evaluations of Students Performance

Done - All Passed!

Lessons Learned

Now that GSoC 2010 is over, we are reviewing our performance in the programme to determine how we should organise ourselves differently next year, if OSM is selected for GSoC 2011. The issues coming out of the Lessons Learned exercise are:

The weekly updates are good, but we should provide more feedback to the students - slightly more detailed updates may be useful.

We should encourage more interaction between the students and with the community in general.

Accepted Proposals

The student proposals that have been accepted to take part in this Year's Google Summer of Code are identified in the Accepted Projects wiki page.

Beneath that, each project has a wiki page describing the project in more detail, and reports on progress throughout the programme.

Potential Student Projects

Some possible student projects are listed at GSoC Project Ideas 2010. If you think of another idea, please add it to that list as it will help get people thinking of other ideas.

Potential Student Participants

Please work on any draft proposals on the GSoC Web Site - this helps us start to discuss the proposals and assign mentors!

Project Ideas

Please start with posting your ideas at GSoC Project Ideas 2010, and starting a discussion on the OSM Developers Mailing List to seek views from the community.
The idea is to find out from members if your idea is feasible in the timescales of Google Summer of Code.
If you would prefer to 'sound out' someone about an idea first, please email grahamjones139 at googlemail.com.

Project Proposal

Once you have a good idea for a project, you will need to turn your idea into a proposal for a project. We are proposing the following template for student proposals:

The GSoC FAQ includes the following guidance on student applications that you should consider too:
"'Your application should include the following: your project proposal, why you'd like to execute on this particular project, and the reason you're the best individual to do so. Your proposal should also include details of your academic, industry, and/or open source development experience, and other details as you see fit. An explanation of your development methodology is a good idea, as well. It is always helpful to include contact information, as well, as it will not be automatically shared with your would-be mentors as part of the application process. If the organization you want to work with has a specific application template they would like you to use, it will be made available to you to fill in when submitting your proposal via the GSoC web app'".

The important thing about your proposal is to demonstrate that you know what you want to do, have an understanding of the sort of issues that you will need to address to meet your targets, and that the project is achievable on the timescales of Google Summer of Code. We suggest that you include a schedule for completing your project, showing the major milestones and when you intend to achieve them - this will help convince yourself that you can do it, and convince us that you have thought about it. The sort of milestones could be:

Produce functional specification (what are you going to achieve)

Produce outline design (what computer language, libraries etc. will be used, how will the code be structured).

Skeleton code structure produced.

Functional code produced for testing.

Testing Complete

Documentation Complete

Different projects will have different balances of design and coding time.

Application

The window for students to submit their applications is between 29th March and 9th April as shown on the GSoC'10 timeline Applications are made via the Google Summer of Code web site (http://socghop.appspot.com/), not directly to OpenStreetMap.

Please submit your proposal as early as possible as this will allow potential mentors the maximum time to review it and ask you questions to help us decide which proposals to choose.

If you have any difficulty in applying, please email grahamjones139 at gmail.com, and I will help.

Project Review & Mentor Assignment

Google will allocate OpenStreetMap a given number of student places and we must choose the successful applicants from everyone that submits proposals to OpenStreetMap.

Once you have submitted your application, the potential mentors will review the applications and rank them to match projects to available student places. This is all done from the Google Summer of Code Web Site as described here. We may want to contact you to ask you to clarify an aspect of your application, so please include contact details, especially email!

Successful Applicants

The successful applicants will be matched to mentors and announced by Google.
We will set up a small mailing list for students and mentors to discuss progress during the programme.

We will be in touch very soon after the announcement to set this up and get the successful students and their mentors working together.

What to Expect

Since, OpenStreetMap is accepted for this year's Google Summer of Code, we will move this page and replace it with a different one to track the progress of the successful projects - see Google_Summer_of_Code/2010/AcceptedProjects.

Each project will have a wiki page describing the project and providing weekly project updates.

A summary of progress of all accepted projects will be sent to the Dev mailing list to keep other OpenStreetMap developers informed.

Potential Mentors

If you are prepared to act as a mentor on the programme, please add your name and interests here.

Grahamjones 22:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC) : I am most interested in projects to produce pretty, user selectable output, either on paper or via the web, or in the development of mapping tools for mobile devices (Android, J2ME).

Vaish.rajan 16:03, 03 March 2010 (IST) : I am interested in Accessibility based projects for visually impaired. "Open Source" softwares/source code/RESTful APIs can be used to create application/project. Be innovative, most feasible/helpful/accessible/practical project proposal will have an edge.Get Inspired!

Things To Do

To participate in the programme, we will need to do the following (at least!):

Make an application to Google for OSM to be a 'Mentoring Organisation' between 8th and 12th March 2010 (i.e. a very tight window!) - done 08 March 2010 - Grahamjones 17:55, 9 March 2010 (UTC).

Produce a list of possible student projects - We have a pretty good list on GSoC Project Ideas 2010. More are always welcome though!.

Invite students to make proposals to participate in Google Summer of Code with OpenStreetMap. - This is really part of the GSoC application process, but if you know a student that would be interested, please point them to this page.

Identify Mentors from the OSM community to look after the students. - In progress - see above.

Choose which student proposals to accept, and match them to mentors.

Get on and help them achieve their project goals!

There are also a few 'good ideas' that I think would help the student applicants:

Produce a guide to preparing a proposal (what we would like to see described in a proposal - last year's applications were quite variable). - completed below.

The timeline for achieving these requirements is shown on the GSoC'10 site [timeline].
Now that the OSM is accepted as mentoring Organization for GSoC'10, our next big deadline is to choose which student projects to accept, and match them to mentors, by 21 April.